South Korea has said it will withdraw all of its workers from a shared industrial park, hours after North Korea rejected negotiations.

Ryoo Kihl-jae, South Korea's Unification minister, said they took the "inevitable decision to bring back all the remaining personnel in Kaesong for the protection of our people".

It was not clear when the 175 South Korean and one Chinese worker from the Kaesong Industrial Complex would pull out. North Korea removed its 53,000 workers earlier this month.

As the only concrete bond linking the North and the South, Kaesong is often held up as a bellwether for Korean relations.

Even when tensions between the two sides were stretched by nuclear tests, missile launches and the shelling of South Korean residents, Kaesong remained open.

Lying six miles inside North Korea, it provided jobs for more than 50,000 North Korean workers at factories owned by South Korean companies and pumped almost £60 million of hard currency to Pyongyang each year.

In a statement, North Korea said it would not threaten the safety of the South Koreans who were withdrawing.

"If they are truly worried about the lives of South Korean personnel in the (complex), they may withdraw all of them to the south side where there are stockpiles of food and raw materials and sound medical conditions," said a spokesman for the North's National Defence Commission.

"All matters related to the safety of South Korean personnel wanting to leave Kaesong will be guaranteed by our authorities," he added.

While the future for Kaesong looks gloomy, both sides avoided spelling out that the park would close.

"This is a war of pride between the Koreas, but they are conducting it while leaving some room for talks," said Lee Hochul, a political science professor at Incheon National University in South Korea to The Associated Press.

"Once drills end and tension subsides, they may try to revive contact over Kaesong."